'The Odyssey' has Korean audiences making epic journeys at dawn to experience IMAX screenings

It’s 6 a.m. on Monday at Yongsan IPark Mall, a shopping complex in central Seoul. The stores are dark, their shutters still down. But the elevator is packed, and everyone inside is headed to the same place: CGV’s largest theater in Korea.

When the doors open on the sixth floor, the crowd spills out toward the bright lights and smell of popcorn. They're here for the day’s first IMAX screening of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” at 6:30 a.m. All 620 seats had sold out almost as soon as reservations opened.

Kim Da-hye, an office worker, had a ticket — but just barely. She had booked a seat for a morning screening of the action-fantasy epic at a Megabox theater in Gangnam. While riding the first bus into Seoul, however, she managed to snag a last-minute cancellation for the 6:30 a.m. IMAX screening and changed course for CGV Yongsan instead.

“I only go to the movies two or three times a year, so if I’m going to see one, I want to see it somewhere good,” Kim said. It was her second time watching the film, and although there was a theater right in front of her home, she wanted to see it in IMAX — a premium format known for its oversize screens and immersive picture and sound.

Ji Han-mi, 40, meanwhile, drove to Yongsan with her husband from Wonju, Gangwon, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Seoul, even though she had to work that afternoon. The early-morning screening was the only one they had been able to book.

IMAX screenings across Korea have been caught up in a booking frenzy since “The Odyssey” opened in theaters on Wednesday. At CGV, the exclusive operator of IMAX theaters in Korea, 86 percent of seats for IMAX screenings of "The Odyssey" were filled during the film’s first week of release, according to a spokesperson for the theater chain. Aside from seats reserved for moviegoers with disabilities, tickets are often selling out almost as soon as reservations open, which during the film’s early run are weeks before the screening date, the representative said.

Tickets have been particularly difficult to secure at CGV’s flagship theater in Yongsan, home to Korea’s largest IMAX screen and the third-largest in the world. Moviegoers have been swapping information online about which IMAX theaters have the tallest and widest screens, and what seats have which view, in the search for what they consider the best way to experience Nolan's adaptation of the ancient Greek epic. One X user described the Yongsan auditorium — which even has a nickname, “Yongamaek," a portmanteau for Yongsan IMAX  — as so large that the screen felt as if it might “come crashing over me like a wave.”

Kim Geon-mo, a 26-year-old who described himself as a cinema buff, came to the Monday morning screening after hearing about how the film was the first to be shot entirely using 70 mm IMAX film cameras. Kim said he monitored online film communities ahead of his Seoul trip from Busan, 400 kilometers away, to book what he considered the best seats.

Unfortunately for Kim, no theater in Korea — or anywhere else in Asia — is equipped to project IMAX 70 mm film. But like in the case for him, the broader IMAX craze has been fueled by comparisons between the format and standard screenings, where substantially less of the image is visible.

The frenzy has escalated to the point that tickets for “The Odyssey” at CGV Yongsan’s IMAX theater have been listed on secondhand marketplaces for as much as 13 times their face value, such as a seller who was asking 280,000 won ($198) per ticket for a seat that originally cost 21,000 won.

The inflated prices are “enraging,” said Kim Eun-ji, a 24-year-old student on break who also came to see “The Odyssey” at Yongsan. Determined not to buy from scalpers, she booked her ticket two weeks in advance.

CGV is “continuously monitoring abnormal booking activity by some users and the possibility of illicit ticket resales” and has taken measures including restricting accounts in accordance with its terms of service, the spokesperson said. But the company has limited ability to penalize transactions that take place on other platforms, the spokesperson added.

“The Odyssey” is also benefiting from Nolan’s strong following in Korea, where he has long been a reliable box-office draw with films including the "The Dark Knight" trilogy (2005-2012), "Inception" (2010) and "Dunkirk" (2017). His science-fiction epic “Interstellar” (2014) drew more than 10 million moviegoers, widely considered a significant milestone in the country, an especially notable feat for a genre that had traditionally struggled at the domestic box office. "The Odyssey" beat "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" on its opening weekend to top the weekend box-office chart. 

Nolan has long been associated with IMAX among Korean audiences. “Interstellar,” which was partly shot with IMAX cameras, posted an 88 percent seat occupancy rate for its IMAX screenings during its opening weekend, the highest for any film at CGV that year. It later topped a poll of films audiences most wanted to see again in IMAX, leading to a nationwide rerelease in 2016, and has returned to CGV’s IMAX screens several times since. 

During his first official visit to Korea earlier this month, Nolan said he was struck by the popularity of “Interstellar” in the country and encouraged audiences to see “The Odyssey” in theaters.

“We want the audience to feel that they are on the deck of the ship with him and that they’re climbing mountains with him or going into the Cyclops cave with him,” Nolan said at a news conference with reporters on Aug. 3. “A theatrical experience where you are sharing that with other people and you are seeing it on a larger-than-life screen, that’s a really great way to experience that.”

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]